


Frameshift

by ziparumpazoo



Category: Firestarter, Fringe
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Fringe Secret Santa, Fringe exchange, Gen, Post-Season 4, casefic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-07
Updated: 2013-01-07
Packaged: 2017-11-24 00:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/628214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ziparumpazoo/pseuds/ziparumpazoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fringe Division picks up a new case. Parallels abound. (post-season 4)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frameshift

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rainer76](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainer76/gifts).



“So?” Peter asks as he reaches mugs out of the cupboard. “How’s your sister?”

“Good.” Olivia grabs the bakery bag off the table and fishes through it. “Surprised I called, I think. We don’t talk as much as we used to, or at least how I remember we used to.” She frowns and looks up at Peter. “You ate all the croissants already?”

Peter takes the bag and offers her the bagel he’s already plated instead. “You don’t usually like them so I only got one.”

“It’s never not going to be weird, is it?” she asks.

“You wanting croissants? No. That’s always going to be a red flag for me.” He pours the coffee and leans back against the kitchen counter, mug in hand.

She shakes her head at him, but she’s smiling because she’s missed how easy it is to just  _be_  with Peter. “Knowing things about people’s lives that haven’t happened to them. Having a nephew I can barely remember ever meeting, even though I’ve found at least half a dozen pictures of him and Ella and myself from the last time I was in Chicago.” She feels, not for the first time, the weight of what’s been lost. But she’d made the choice with her eyes wide open and the regrets are hers to live with. Still, it doesn’t stop her from leaning in when Peter brushes his fingers against her cheek. They’re his lost histories too, and that makes the sting of missing them feel not quite so sharp. She takes a sip of her tea.

“Maybe you should go visit them,” he suggests. “Get to know them all over again.”

She puts her mug aside and considers it. “If you come with me. Besides, Rachel says she wants to meet the guy who finally managed to tie her wayward big sister down.”

“Tie you down?” He raises and eyebrow. “She does know you’re the one with the handcuffs, right?”

She spies Peter’s plate (and the single croissant) on the counter, hidden behind him, and decides she needs a diversion. “You don’t like the handcuffs?”

“I love your handcuffs. I love the things you do with your handcuffs.”

"Good. Enjoy it while you can, apparently," she tells him as she slips one hand under his shirt to distract him and grabs his half-eaten croissant off his plate with the other. "Rachel just had fun listing all the things that aren't going to be happening after the baby's born." She raises one eyebrow suggestively as she bites the croissant.

"Did she now?" Peter makes a half-hearted grab for his breakfast, but she holds it out of his arm's reach. He catches the edge of her bathrobe instead and pulls her toward him by her collar. "Let me guess. 'You'll never get another full night's sleep again'? Or how about 'You’ll never eat at another restaurant without a kid's menu'."

Olivia pulls a piece of croissant loose and offers it to Peter. "'You'll never get to use the shower by yourself again."

"I don't now," he manages to answer before she shoves the pastry in his mouth. "Hey," he protests, but pulls her close so she's standing between his bare feet, pressed up close to him. "What else did she say?"

Olivia slips her hand under his shirt again and drags her fingers along his ribs before she tucks them into the waistband at the back of his jeans. "She said to get a lock for the bedroom door."

Just as she leans in to kiss his jaw, her cellphone rings. Then Peter's. She drops her head to his chest and groans.

Peter's lips brush the top of her head as he reaches to the counter behind him to check the call display. "Did she say anything about never, ever buying the kid its own cell phone?"

::

The fire, which had all but gutted the loading docks at the north end of the warehouse, was out by the time they arrived and the last of the hoses were being rolled and packed back onto the fire trucks. Broyles is waiting beside the arson squad’s truck with Walter, who is impatiently shuffling his feet while he arranges and rearranges the two large black briefcases at his feet.

Peter nods a greeting to a harried looking Agent Tim, who’s hanging as far back as he can and still be considered on escort duty. He leans toward Olivia and asks, “You gotta wonder who he pissed off to keep getting stuck with this assignment.”

“He’s got a crush on Astrid,” she whispers back without moving her lips.

Peter looks at her sharply. “He does know what he’s getting into with this family, right?”

“Tim’s been with us since Walter was released from St. Claire’s. I think he’s got a pretty good idea. Besides,” she tilts her head closer so they won’t be overheard, “he’s not Astrid’s type.”

“Really? What type is that?”

“Not FBI.”

Peter winces. “Poor guy.”

They’ve reached the group, so Olivia just shrugs before she turns to Broyles. “Sir.”

“Dunham,” Broyles nods, looking slightly less composed than usual. His eyes cut toward Walter. “About time.”

“Where’s Astrid?” she asks.

“Agent Farnsworth…” Walter says in a voice loud enough to carry over a string and a pair of tin cans, never mind the modified earpiece he’s wearing. He holds a hand up to his ear and cocks his head while he listens. “Agent Farnsworth says ‘Good morning and stop shouting Walter.’” He straightens. “Agent Farnsworth says good morning from the lab,” he answers formally, and then turns away from them with his hand still covering his ear. “Try turning down the gain… over on the left hand side of the control board.” A squelch of static filters out from his ear piece and Walter winces. “Left hand side,” he shouts into the earpiece’s microphone. “Left!”

“Agent Farnsworth’s still on light-duty, pending final medical evaluation,” Broyles supplies. He gives Olivia a pointed look that’s clearly meant to say  _’as certain other agents should be’_.

Olivia straightens. “Astrid was shot, sir.”

But Broyles isn’t buying it. “So were you.”

“Extenuating circumstances.” Olivia looks back at Broyles and refuses to blink.

“And the fire?” Peter interrupts. He’d tried to convince Olivia to take more time off after the business with Bell, telling her he was being selfish and calling in the ‘saving the universe’ clause he claimed was in his contract, but after a week away, Olivia had already started feeling restless and itchy to get back to work. There are still loose ends she wants to tie up and reports she wants to read.

Other Cortexiphan children she needs to track down.

“Alarm company called the fire in just after 3:20 this morning.” Broyles turns and leads them past a pair of nondescript black sedans parked tight against the cinderblock building, and through what’s left of the warehouse’s side door. Peter catches Olivia’s sleeve and nods toward the front of the cars where the plastic bumpers are twisted and deformed. She crouches down to examine one of the headlights and notices the lens had been turned a milky-beige from the heat.

“Arson?” Olivia asks Broyles when she and Peter catch up with the rest of the group outside a soda-cracker box of an office next to the loading docks.

Broyles shakes his head. “If it is, the burn pattern isn’t like anything the arson investigators have ever seen.” He doesn’t bother with the door; there’s nothing left except the hinges hanging like a pair of haphazard Post-It notes from the doorframe, a pile of tempered glass pebbles, and a metal sign plate, the words  _’ping Office – all drivers must report with paperwor’_  still legible, on the floor.

The rest of the office is surprisingly intact, with the exception of the small window that looks out on to the warehouse floor and the scorch marks blackening the walls and ceiling. The laminate top of the industrial grade desk is blistered and burnt, but it’s still recognizable, as if the fire had burned hot and fast before putting itself out. The single desk chair’s seating‘s been incinerated, leaving nothing but the steel frame and four heat-flattened casters.

The white-on-black halo of unmarred drywall is roughly person-shaped and the only part of the room that hasn’t been licked by fire.

Olivia steps around the rest of the group and stops facing the far corner of the room. Thankfully Peter’s there to answer Broyles with, “But we have” because her mouth has gone suddenly dry.

She’s been in a room like this before, and if whatever went on here is anything like the daycare in Jacksonville, the empty corner is also their likely point of ignition.

She knows Peter’s right beside her but she doesn’t look away from the wall until she feels his finger brush across the back of her hand, and when she does finally turn, it’s so the unburnt section is completely out of sight. Peter doesn’t ask if she’s okay, but the question is still there, unspoken. She presses her lips together and gives him a sharp nod.

“Walter found legs,” he reports.

There must be something in her expression because he’s quick to clarify. “Men’s legs. Two pairs and a spare. The rest of the bodies are just ash.” Peter points to the desk where Tim’s holding a black rubber bag at arm’s length. “Looks like there was a man in a suit at the desk, and another two in boots and fatigues by the door.”

Walter’s voice comes from somewhere on the other side. “Unless we have a three-legged man running around.” His face appears above the edge of the desk as he considers what he’s just said. “Of course he wouldn’t be doing much running without his legs now, would he?” Walter drops a dark gray wool clad thigh and calf into the bag with a liquid plop, then tosses its tasseled loafer in as an afterthought. He turns to Tim. “We need to get our combustible friend here back to the lab, young man. Quickly now.”

Tim, trying to look anywhere but at the bag he’s been tasked with, follows Walter out of the room. Once they’re out of earshot, Peter leans toward Olivia again. “You sure he didn’t piss someone off?”

“I fill out his performance reviews.”

Olivia breathes through her mouth as they poke through the charred remains of the office; she’d forgotten how pungent burnt flesh could smell in a small space, or maybe she’s just never noticed before now. It only takes them another ten minutes to decide that there’s nothing else worth noting that hasn’t either been collected by Walter, or rendered completely unrecognizable from the heat. Still, she’s sure there’s something they haven’t accounted for here.

“What are you thinking?” Peter asks as they pick their way back through the warehouse.

She makes a humming noise, not yet ready to commit to a theory. “I think that there was somebody else in the room with those men,” she offers finally. Peter turns toward her, trying to get a better read on her. Even though he doesn’t say it, she can tell he’s thinking about what they found in Jacksonville too.

Something above catches her eye. She stops and looks up at the ceiling. It takes Peter three full strides before he realizes Olivia’s not beside him anymore. “Look.” She points above them.

“It’s not burnt,” he says once he joins her. The warehouse is older, built back in the day when fresh product was loaded onto trucks for local delivery, not frozen and then stacked in shipping containers bound for all points of the compass. The ceiling here by the loading docks is only about twelve feet high, concrete, and laced with cables and wires and pipes carrying ammonia between the compressor station and the cooler. And while the walls and floors are nearly black with several decade’s worth of diesel soot, making any fire damage nearly indistinguishable from the rest of the grime, the wires and cables definitely look like they’ve been exposed to significant heat; they’re sagging in some places, while in others, they’ve melted clean through and hang like greasy icicles from their steel brackets.

“The report says the fire was confined to the office and the first three doors of the loading dock.” Olivia flips through the folder Broyles had left with her and turns to look back the way they’d come. “It didn’t touch anything else along the dock.”

Peter pokes through a pile of broken wood pallets and strapping by the wall. “This is all dry.” One of the pallet slats pops like a cap gun when he bends it with his boot. “If the fire was hot enough here to melt those wires, this junk would’ve gone up like matchsticks.”

“Those cars,” Olivia tips her head and points toward the door they first came through. “The bumpers were melted, but not burnt.”

“Like they were exposed to some pretty high temperatures.” Peter agrees. He brushes his hands on his pants and manages to raise a cloud of black dust around him. “This is probably toxic.” He settles for just wiping his hands together and smearing the dirt. “Breathing this in probably isn’t a good idea.”

“There were finger marks embedded in the plastic of the headlight.” She ignores Peter’s comment about the dust; it’s not like she was planning on lingering here anyhow. “Somebody touched it when it was still warm. We should get photos before they tow the cars.”

“I don’t know about you, but to me those cars looked government fleet to me.” Peter pulls his phone from his pocket. “I think we’re also going to want to run a check on the VIN numbers.”

They head back toward the door they came in. By the time they hit the parking lot, most of the fire trucks and emergency personnel are gone. So is the pair of black sedans.

“I’ll see if Broyles can track them down,” Olivia says as she hits speed dial on her phone.

She finds Peter on the other side of the parking lot a few minutes later. “According to Broyles, nobody gave the order to tow the cars,” she tells him. “We’re trying to find out who took custody, but without a VIN or the plate numbers… ” she shrugs. “There’s a camera,” she points to the warehouse’s roofline, “but it wasn’t pointed toward that end of the building.”

“What about the alarm company?” he asks.

Olivia shakes her head. “Find something?”

“I noticed when we got here that this side of the alley is all residential, so I thought somebody might have seen something, but no such luck. The hedges here would’ve been too thick, especially in the dark. But I also saw this,” Peter holds out the bunch of leaves he’d torn from the hedge. “Notice anything about them?”

The leaves are wilted and dry, curled up around themselves. They crumble easily between her fingers. “They’ve been scorched,” she says. “Like our missing cars.” Peter nods.

Olivia looks down the alley and notices that the privacy hedge runs the entire length of the block. It’s not a perfect breadcrumb trail, but even from here she can see patches of discolored leaves and bunches of browned lilac flowers pointing the way, and she feels the familiar thrum of adrenaline she always gets when they pick up a lead.

“I think we might know where our witness went,” she says as she takes off at trot, trusting that Peter will follow her.

But the trail of wilted bushes ends along with the alley at a cross street; more residential to the south, while a collection of storefronts – a dry cleaner’s, two liquor stores, a pair of restaurants, and a twenty-four hour convenience store make up the first block and a half of the north side. Peter barely hesitates before he heads north.

“What makes you think whoever was at the warehouse came this way?” Olivia asks as they pass the dry cleaner’s.

“No reason.” Peter turns to her in front of the first restaurant – one of those all-night places where you can get burgers and fries at midnight, pancakes in the afternoon, and coffee strong enough to stand your spoon up in at any hour of the day. “But somebody cheated me out of my breakfast and now I’m starving.” Peter is, after all, his father’s son and breakfast is sacred. He holds the door open as an invitation.

Olivia narrows her eyes at him as she walks by him. “I know what you’re doing.”

“Me?” He’s all wide-eyed innocence but she doesn’t believe him for a second. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The bell above the door tinkles as it closes behind him. Peter’s usually better at the laissez-faire partner act; he still prides himself on being able to read what people need, knowing when to push and when to ease back and wait for them to find their own way to a common conclusion. But he’s also got a deeply ingrained fear of something terrible happening to the people he cares for, and Olivia knows that the last few weeks… no, the last few months, have pushed him close to his breaking point. He doesn’t have to say anything for her to know that the shooting still scares him; the way he sleeps with some part of his body always touching hers and wakes with a start if she rolls away from him in her sleep is enough for her to give him a pass.

Olivia’s mouth starts watering the moment she smells the grease from the deep fryers, proving his point. She picks a booth at the far end of the diner and grabs a menu from the holder on the table.

“Besides,” Peter says as he shucks his jacket and slides in across from her, “if your blood sugar weren’t so low, you might have noticed that at least three of the places on this block probably have security cameras pointed toward the street.”

Olivia looks out the window and realizes that they’re across the street from one of the liquor stores. A large black and yellow ‘Video Surveillance in Effect’ sign takes up more real estate on the door than the list of credit cards the store accepts. She smoothes her hand over her head, flattening wisps of hair that won’t stay tied back, and turns back to Peter.

She knows it’s not a jab at her capabilities; it’s Peter’s way of letting her know that while he’s got her back, she’s not operating at peak efficiency. It’s a gentle reminder that she needs to remember to take care of herself. He’s been doing this as long as she’s known him. He’s doing a good job of keeping the conversation away from any discussion about whether or not she should be out in the field at all, even though she knows her (and by proxy, the baby’s) well-being and safety is front and center on his mind right now. He worries about them, and in that way too, he is very much his father’s son.

She reaches across the table and squeezes his hand. “Point taken.” The crease between his eyes softens a bit. Olivia glances down at the menu and picks the first thing she sees. She’s too hungry to care. “Order the Big Breakfast for me? I need to find the washroom.” She holds up both her soot and dust-smeared hands.

“Sausage or bacon?”

“Both?”

Peter grins. “You really are an all-or-nothing kind of girl.”

::

Olivia passes the girl sitting by herself in the next booth over on her way to the washroom and doesn’t think anything of the lingering smell of smoke around her until she’s washing her hands.

It takes a fair amount of soap and hot water to get them clean and by the time she’s done, the sink looks like it too could use a good cleaning. She reaches for some paper to wipe it down, but the restaurant still uses the continuous cloth roll dispenser, so she settles for splashing most of the grime away with a couple of handfuls of water. She pulls on the towel to unroll a fresh swatch, and as the used section furls back up into the dispenser, she notices the black streaks that match the spatters she’d just rinsed out of the sink.

On the way back to the table, Olivia pays closer attention. The girl is young – eight, maybe nine years old, her soft cheeks at odds with the rest of her coltish figure, too young to be dining alone. She’s watching Olivia from the cover of her menu and cuts her eyes away just as Olivia passes, feigning disinterest, though her back is stiff and her muscles tense, reminding Olivia very much of a yearling deer grazing at the side of the road but ready to bolt at the first sign of threat.

“We might not need that footage after all,” Olivia whispers as she slides in across from Peter. She angles her head to the side and watches as Peter’s eyes follow.

“How do you want to handle it?” he asks. They’re interrupted by their orders arriving. Peter keeps one eye on the girl even as he smiles at the waitress and gives her a charming “Thanks Marge," that’s all teeth and dimples and makes Marge’s apple cheeks pink up. Olivia would’ve been tempted to kick him under the table if she didn’t secretly enjoy watching him work, knowing that while Peter loved to play the charmer when he could, she’s the one who gets to take him home with her.

“Let’s just see what she does.” Besides, now that the plate of food is sitting in front of her, Olivia feels almost dizzy with hunger.

As it turns out, they don’t have to wait long.

“You ready to order yet, sweetie?” Marge taps her pen impatiently on her order pad. The girl flips the menu pages back and forth, stalling for a bit more time.

“Listen, you can’t stay here all day if you don’t order something,” Marge tells her. “The lunch crowd is gonna start and we’ll need the booth.”

The girl tenses and drops one hand out of sight to grab something beside her on the booth, and Olivia knows she’s about to bolt. They’ll lose her and they’ll lose their lead.

“Honey, why don’t you come back and sit with us and order,” Peter speaks up. Marge turns to them, surprise quickly turning to suspicion at the pair of strangers and their sudden interest in this child. Peter smiles up at Marge again. “Kids. Always pushing those boundaries.”

Something warm brushes through Olivia’s her mind, gentle as fingertips across her scalp. “Come on, Charlie,” she says and it just feels _right_ , like the name’s been there on the tip of her tongue the whole time. She slides over to make room beside her in the booth. “Come and eat lunch.” She looks at Marge and shrugs in what she hopes comes across looking something like an apology. The girl – Charlie — drops a tattered backpack onto the seat next to Olivia and slides in beside her, mumbling out her order.

“Charlie?” Marge asks. “That really your name?” Olivia has to give her props for asking; it’d be too easy in this neighborhood just turn a blind eye on some runaway kid.

“It’s really Charlene,” the girl says, “but she,” a nod in Olivia’s direction, “always calls me Charlie.” Olivia feels that touch again, feather light, and as she watches, Charlie eyes go wide for a second and then she seems to grow with confidence. “See, she used to have a good friend name Charlie. He was a cop too, except— “

“What’d we tell you about sharing with people you don’t know, kiddo?” Peter interrupts before all of Olivia’s secrets can be spilled. He’s managing to pull off his casually neutral look, but she can see the alarm there too, just below the surface.

“Don’t?” Charlie shrugs at him, as if this is an old argument. She turns back to Marge and says matter-of-factly, pointing to Olivia's jacket lapel, “She could show you her badge if you want?”

The door chime tinkles as the door opens to let in a trio of men in work boots and orange safety vests, and Marge seems to decide she’s satisfied with the story. She tears the top sheet off her pad. “I’ll get the cook to put a rush on this,” she tells them and then goes to greet the latest crowd with a pot of coffee.

Once Marge’s out of earshot, Peter leans in across the table. “You two thinking of taking that act on the road?”

“It wasn’t me,” Olivia protests. At least she doesn’t think it was; she hasn’t tried to use any of her Cortexiphan-induced powers since leaving the hospital. The last couple of weeks have felt like the closest thing to normal she’s known in a long time and she’s been unwilling to upset that particular applecart.

Beside her, Charlie’s drawing pictures with her finger in the condensation on the outside of her water glass and pretending she’s not listening to everything going on around her. Her blond hair falls across her face, hiding the smudge of soot along her cheekbone that she’d missed when she’d washed up earlier. For a moment, she’s not this girl, Charlie, but Olivia herself some twenty-odd years ago, sitting at the last bus stop on Fifth Street with the smell of smoke still lingering on her clothes and in her hair, trying to convince herself to just  _keep going_ , just get away from the needles and the exercises and the tests.

She reaches out, hesitates, then tucks a stand of hair behind Charlie’s ear. She wants to wipe the smudge from her cheek, but that might be pushing it, the contact too personal. She draws her fingers around her thumb and pulls back. The girl is watching her with eyes that should belong to someone much older and Olivia gets the feeling that Charlie’s trying to see something in her too, trying to touch her again, like she did earlier.

Olivia’s aware that Peter’s watching them both carefully, but he’s holding back, unwilling to interrupt just yet. “You were the one at the warehouse, weren’t you, Charlie,” she says softly. It’s not a question.

Charlie flinches and it feels like a spell has been broken. Olivia heart’s racing and she’s out of breath. The girl’s already grabbing for her backpack, but Olivia puts a hand on her arm and she stops. Charlie doesn’t quite relax, but she also doesn’t run. Her muscles are trembling under Olivia’s fingers. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Peter rub at the back of his neck.

“I did that once too,” Olivia says. She thinks of the daycare and tries to hold the image of being that little girl she once was, crouching and scared in the corner of the burnt room, steady in her mind.

All at once Charlie deflates. She seems to shrink back into herself and become nothing more than a tired, hungry child sorely in need of a warm meal and a bath. Olivia brushes the hair back from her eyes again and pauses this time to rub the soot off her cheek. “There are some people I’d like you to come and meet. People who might be able to help you,” she tells Charlie. “Would you like to do that?”

Charlie looks at her and nods. Across the table, Peter rubs a hand over his face and lets out a breath. He doesn't tell her until later how he'd felt the temperature in the diner suddenly drop.

::

The Walgreens on Beacon Street is bright enough to hurt his eyes and make them water, but it's also busy at half past three in the afternoon, and that's why Andy chose it – plenty of cover. That, and a fine selection of analgesics, both prescription if he's desperate enough, and off the shelf. There's an icepick jabbing its way through his skull, but it's not bad enough to hold up the pharmacist for his supply of Percodan just yet. He didn't have to push the cab driver that hard to let him out without paying the fare.

From behind the display of greeting cards and magazines, he can see the nondescript dark sedan pull up out front. It's sitting in one of the handicap spots, but he doesn’t need to check for the sticker or the hang tag on the mirror to know that it doesn't belong there; this car, or another one like it, has been following him for the last three days. Sometimes he only sees it like a shadow in the corner of his eye; sometimes it's sitting there boldly, waiting for him to move.

This one is meant to be a diversion. There's probably another one idling in the alley out back, waiting to pinch the net shut around him. Andy looks over his shoulder. Two girls in their late teens are giggling over a greeting card with kittens on the front. Farther down the aisle, a short woman with tightly permed blue-gray hair is loading discounted bottles of vitamins into her shopping basket by the handful. Neither she, nor the girls, could pass for Shop agents.

Andy glances up at the convex mirror mounted from the ceiling and sees the pair of men in black suits striding down aisle six – shampoo and hair coloring— with a purpose. And if he can see them in the mirror…

Andy turns the corner and heads down the First Aid aisle as casually as possible, keeping his eye on the rent-a-cop by the front doors. Andy sticks an elbow out as he passes one of those cardboard displays of bandages with super-hero characters on them and knocks it over with a crash. Rent-a-cop turns, takes a step in his direction, and when Andy's certain he's got the man's attention he grabs a package of Advil off the shelf and shoves it in his jacket pocket.

Rent-a-cop shouts at him to freeze. Andy glances up at the security mirror. The suits have both stopped and are looking for the source of the commotion. Rent-a-cop's almost on him blocking the route to the front doors.

Andy turns toward him and breaks into a run.

::

"So what've we got?" Astrid settles in on the lab stool and pulls up a variety of logon boxes and search screens on her computer.

Peter doesn't hear her at first. He's watching the scene across the lab where Charlie's sitting next to Olivia on the exam table while Walter pokes and prods, and shines lights into the girl's eyes. Olivia holds out her hand to Charlie when Walter drags his tray of syringes and collection tubes over.

Charlie gets a look at what's on the tray, and pulls back, eyes wide, then looks up at Olivia. Olivia nods. Charlie takes her hand.

Walter looks between the two of them frowning like he's just been faced with a new puzzle, and that's when Peter realizes neither that Charlie nor Olivia have spoken a word and his gut tightens.

Astrid touches Peter's arm. "Peter?"

"Hmm?" he blinks. "Sorry Astrid. What did you say?" Then he notices her screen and gives her his full attention. "We weren't able to get much out of her on the ride back here, but we do know her name's Charlene McGee, eight years old. Father's name is Andy, mother's deceased. Originally from Ohio, but she hasn't been back there in a long time."

"How long is long?" Astrid asks as she types in the information.

"Hard to say. When I was eight, forty seemed ancient. Now," he winces. "Different story."

Astrid smiles. "So assuming that we're not dealing with time dilation, time travel, or any other sort of chronological disruption in this case…" she checks a couple of boxes, "we can widen the search over the full eight years." She looks up to find Peter staring at her with a raised eyebrow. "What?"

Peter turns to her. "' _Chronological disruption_ '?"

Astrid looks up at him. "Hey, working out of this lab is a hell of a lot more educational than most post-grad programs. I've picked up a thing or two." Her tone might come off as being deeply offended, but Astrid's smiling.

Peter raises his hands. "Hey, I'm the last one to argue that."

"At least  _I_  didn't forge any of  _my_  degrees." Peter opens his mouth to protest, but Astrid holds up a hand to cut him off. "Olivia and I talk."

::

"Intriguing." Walter flips through the stack of papers the lab printer is in the process of spitting out. "Peter, come look at this." He waves Peter over without looking up from the printouts. "See this here?" He jabs at the papers. "And here?"

Peter leans over his shoulder. "What am I looking at, Walter?"

"The girl's DNA profile."

"That was fast," Peter says. "It's only been what, three hours?"

"Two and a half," Walter answers absently, still engrossed in the report. "The new sequencer is marvelous."

Peter can't argue that. One benefit of saving the universe was the improved stream of resources at Fringe Division's disposal, the direct result being new equipment, most of it furnished by Massive Dynamic. "So tell me again," Peter asks, "If we've suddenly got this new and improved budget, why are we still working out of here?"

Walter looks up at him sharply, brows furrowed. "Why wouldn't we?"

The question reminds Peter that the Harvard lab, with its poor lighting, strange odors, and temperamental thermostat is more than just a workplace for Walter – it's his home. He touches Walter's shoulder and smiles.

"No reason." Peter leans over Walter's shoulder again. "So what've we got here?"

"See this here?" Walter points to a line of lettered code. "This series of nucleotides is out of order."

"And that's how Charlie can light fires?" It seems like a leap to Peter, though with all he's seen, he shouldn't be surprised. It just seems too simple a solution. "I'm assuming you checked for traces of Cortexiphan and other substances?"

"Of course," Walter says sounding slightly annoyed that Peter would doubt his methodology, then squints at the report again. "Fascinating."

"You're sure?" Peter asks. "I mean, human DNA has what, sixty possible codons that make up the genetic code? And a lot of them are redundant."

"Sixty-four," Walter corrects him.

"So how can you be sure that this little piece of code that's been reshuffled is the cause?"

"Because the sequence hasn't been reshuffled. It's been shifted over." Walter finally looks up from the report. "There are extra nucleotides in this sequence here, and," he stabs at the paper, "here."

Peter's still not quite sure he's caught up to Walter yet. "Couldn't it just be some random mutation?"

"No." Walter picks up a piece of chalk and flips his blackboard over to the clean side. "These," he writes the letters  _T_ ,  _G_ , and  _G_ , "Thymine followed by a pair of Guanine molecules are the codons that define the formation of Tryptophan… the recipe, if you will."

"Isn't that what makes you feel sleepy after a big turkey dinner?" Astrid asks from where she's leaning against a lab bench with her arms crossed. Peter hadn't heard her approach.

Walter points to Astrid. "Precisely." He turns back to the board, not to be distracted from his lesson. "Now suppose we were to drop another ingredient into the mix," he adds the letter  _T_  in front of the first three letters. "What do we get?"

Walter turns and looks from Peter to Astrid expectantly.

"You got me there, Walter," Peter says, hoping he'll get to the point. But Walter does love an audience, and while they're waiting for the results of Astrid's search to come in, he's got a captive one.

Astrid takes a step over to the board and picks up a piece of chalk. "No, I see it." She draws a vertical line in front of the set of letter, then another after the third. It reminds Peter of a music staff divided into measures of three beats each.

"You read the code in three letter frames," Astrid explains. She circles the first three letters in the measure. "So if you add a letter to the recipe at the beginning, it shifts the entire code in each frame over by one letter. Which in this case makes… I don't know what it makes. Walter?" Astrid hands him her piece of chalk.

Walter smiles at Peter smugly. "In this case,  _TTG_  is the recipe for Leucine." He writes it on the board and nods to Astrid. "Excellent, my dear."

"So what does all this have to do with Charlie? How do you know this isn't just some random mutation?" Peter argues.

"Because," Walter rounds the bench and picks up the report again. "The  _location_  of this particular mutation is what's key. Here, and here," he points to lines of code on the page, "these traits are recessively inherited. From the mother, and from the father. Much like coloring of a cat's coat."

"Walter," Peter pushes him. "You're saying this girl  _inherited_  the ability to start fires with her mind?"

"Among other things, yes," Walter answers simply.

Peter sighs and rubs his eyes. There's something about this that isn't sitting right with him, but he can't quite put his finger on it. "So how did you know to look for this particular mutation?"

Walter turns back to his printouts and shuffles through his test tubes on the bench in front of him.

"Walter?" Peter tries again. "How do you know about this mutation?"

Walter doesn't acknowledge the question. Not until Olivia asks it again from where she'd been standing unnoticed at the top of the stairs. "Walter, how did you know?"

Her voice is steady, but Peter can see the knuckles of her hand wrapped around her cell phone have gone white. The lab seems quieter than usual. Even Gene's withholding comment.

Walter finally looks up, his right hand clenching the fingers of his left.

"Because I saw this same mutation when I went back through the data collected during the Cortexiphan trials."

::

"Olivia."

"Nina's sending the files over now," Olivia says as she punches the button to end the call.

Peter steps in front of her, trying to interrupt her pacing. "Olivia?" She veers around him and continues to the end of the hallway, where she stops for a moment to look through the half-open blinds into the office that serves as Walter's bedroom.

"How's Charlie?" Peter asks this time, hoping to shift Olivia's focus away from Walter's latest revelation. He touches her shoulder and relaxes when Olivia leans into him.

"Sleeping," she answers. "She was exhausted." Olivia shakes her head. "God Peter, what kind of way is that for a child to grow up?"

"You turned out okay," he answers gently. The most jarring thing about this timeline for Peter is Olivia's acceptance of the Jacksonville trials. How knowing about them, and growing up with the knowledge of what had been done to her has honed that fierce protective streak she'd always exhibited when it came to children. Not that she hadn't been driven to care for those who couldn't care for themselves before – she had, after all, dragged him half way across the world so she could get access to his father in a Hail Mary attempt to save her partner. Peter wasn't sure if it was the timing, falling so soon on the heels of Bell's betrayal, or the similarities to Olivia's own history, but this case is quickly becoming personal. Peter can see that she's struggling to maintain her objectivity.

Olivia shakes her head. "I never had to live under an assumed name. Or been pulled out of school in the middle of the afternoon, knowing I was never going to see any of my classmates again."

"Charlie told you all of that?"

Olivia looks down and her hands. She fiddles with the buttons on her phone. Winces. "Not exactly."

"Is this like earlier at the diner?" Peter wasn't sure  _what_  exactly had transpired between Charlie and Olivia, but somehow the girl had been able to pluck enough information from Olivia's mind to come up with a fairly convincing cover story.

Olivia gives him that slow side-to-side nod that usually translates into something like ' _yes, sort of… but you're not going to like it_ '. "It's not like she was reading my mind exactly, but like… like she was feeling around in there." She pauses. "You remember the first time we met Nick Lane? How he could influence people's emotions?"

Peter nods.

"Well, it's kind of like that. Like she can experience my thoughts without meaning to."

Peter takes a step back and scrubs a hand across his face to buy himself a few seconds to think. "Olivia, this is big. You've got a lot of classified information stored up there. There's no telling what's she's already picked up from you."

"I can read her too."

Peter stares at her while the pieces start to fall into place. "So that's how you know the stuff about Charlie being pulled out of school?"

"Yes," she answers. Peter notices how her eyes cut away, back toward Walter's room.

"And you're worried that if Charlie inherited these gifts—"

"They're not gifts, Peter."

"If Charlie inherited these  _abilities_ ," he waits to see if she'll correct him on that, but she doesn't, so he goes on, "from her parents, and if you and she are able to connect… "

Peter watches Olivia swallow as he circles around the truth. He takes a step forward, until she's within arm's reach. "You're worried about what you might be passing on to the baby."

Olivia bites her lip and nods once.

It's not much, but it's all she'll allow herself while they've got a case to focus on. He reaches out and cups her face, sweeps his thumb along her cheek, and lets out his own shaky breath.

"And that's why you wanted to get back to work, to look up the other Cortexiphan children and find out what happened to them."

"Guys," Astrid joins them before Olivia can answer. "I got a hit on Charlie's father."

::

"Andy McGee was booked for shoplifting off-the-shelf painkillers at a Walgreens here in Boston about two hours ago," Astrid says as she runs a video file of the store's security footage. It shows the store's security guard tackling a slim man with a blurry face.

"I'm surprised they didn't add 'resisting arrest' to the charges," Peter comments.

Astrid pulls up the arresting officer's report. "The store's security tried to push for it, but apparently Mr. McGee went willingly with the Boston PD officer." She tilts her head as she watches the last few frames of the video. "It almost looks as if he talked them into taking him in."

They're crowded around Astrid's computer monitor. Even with the grainy video, it's easy to see that once the uniformed officers arrived, Andy McGee didn't put up much fight. "Can you get in touch with the precinct? See how long they're going to hold him?" Olivia asks as she pulls out her own phone and punches up Broyles' number.

As she's about to hit 'send', she feels a small arm snake around her waist. She looks down to find Charlie staring up at her, looking very rumpled with her hair sticking out in wild bedhead spikes and her eyes still bleary with sleep. "Hey there," Olivia says. She crouches down until she's eye-level with Charlie and tucks a strand of the girl's wayward hair behind her ear. "Did you have a good sleep?"

"Did they get my dad?" Charlie asks, standing on tiptoes and trying to look over Olivia's shoulder at the monitor.

There's no way that Olivia can even soften the truth without Charlie picking up on it, so she doesn't bother. "The police picked him up a little while ago." She holds up her phone. "We're just about to call up some people so we can be allowed to go see him."

"But did  _they_  get him?" she asks again, and Olivia feels a wash of fear run down her spine. She blinks and sees flip-book images men in dark suits hidden around corners, and feels a burst of heat on her cheeks, like she's just stepped close to a roaring campfire. When she looks over her shoulder, she notices that Peter and Astrid have both taken several steps back. Walter has one of the lab's digital probes pointed in their direction.

"No, no, they didn't get him, Charlie." Olivia takes both of Charlie's hands in hers. She can feel the heat radiating from the girl like a fever. "They didn't get him. We're going to go make sure they don't."

Charlie still looks uncertain. Her eyes dart between Olivia and the still frame on the monitor, then back again. Olivia feels a bead of sweat roll down her neck. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Peter inch his way closer to one of the lab's many fire extinguishers, though she doubts it will do any good if Charlie can't get her fear under control.

"Listen to me Charlie." She brings both of Charlie's hands up so she's holding them between their bodies and gently squeezes until she's got the girl's full attention. "I know you can see if I'm telling you the truth or not. And I know there are people who have tried to trick you before. People who've hurt your family." She takes Charlie's hands and moves them so the girl's palms are pressed to either side of her face. "Charlie, I want you to take a good look around in here and see that I'm not going to let anything bad happen to you or to your dad."

Olivia closes her eyes and opens her mind. She feels Charlie's touch, tentative at first, almost shy, then surer, like fingers walking their way through a file drawer, hopping lightly from one lettered folder tab to another. It's risky, she knows, and not just because of all the classified information Peter had been worried about. Olivia's mind is not an orderly place, and it's rare that it's been solely her own. It's also not the kind of place a young girl should be nosing around; there's no MPAA-approved ratings for some of the things Olivia's seen and done. But she needs Charlie to see that her intentions are good. She needs Charlie to know she can trust her to do what she says she will.

Charlie's temperature continues to rise. Her fingers burn against Olivia's skin and it takes every ounce of willpower for Olivia not to pull back. She feels Charlie's fear shift and change as she picks up Olivia's discomfort. It morphs into something more wild and uncontrollable. Something turning itself dangerously inward.

Charlie's eyes widen as she realizes that Olivia's picked up on it. They're locked together in a mutual feedback loop, one's fear feeding the other's.

"I can't stop… Not the bad thing. I can't stop it," she whispers. "I can't stop the bad thing. I don't want to do it." The heat radiating from her is like a blast furnace.

Olivia glances around the room. Walter's lab is a trove of combustibles. There are flasks and beakers and jars of god-knows-what crammed on to every surface, some with red and yellow labels warning of their flammability or corrosiveness, more of them without.

"Charlie, there." She points to one of the benches and with her mind, gives Charlie a nudge. A piece of equipment sparks, then bursts into flames, taking the stack of papers beside it along with it. Peter steps in with the extinguisher and moments later, the fire's out.

"The new sequencer  _was_  marvelous," Peter comments, but Walter's not paying it any attention. He's focused on the probe readouts.

"Fascinating," he mutters. "The amount of kinetic energy— "

"Not now Walter," Olivia cuts him off without taking her eyes off Charlie. Charlie's gone pale and she's shaking so hard her teeth are starting to chatter. Olivia folds her into her arms and stokes her back while Charlie sobs in great ragged breaths. "Shhh, it's okay, it's okay," she soothes. "Nobody got hurt, it's okay. You did good, Charlie, you did good."

Over Charlie's shoulder, Olivia sees Peter watching them with his arms crossed and his mouth pressed into a tight line.

' _We're okay_ ,' she mouths at him.

::

"So according to the file," Peter says from the passenger seat, "Dr. Joseph Wanless, formerly employed by Massive Dynamic—"

"Of course," Olivia says as she pulls up to the stop light.

Peter tilts his head slightly, acknowledging the irony. He goes back to reading the information Nina had sent. "Formerly employed by Massive Dynamic, was involved in drug trials at Harrison State College in Ohio. The study was apparently government sponsored, but it doesn't say by which department." He flips the page as the light changes. "Both Andy and Vicky McGee – then Victoria Tomlinson— were participants in the trials."

"Charlie's parents." Peter catches the way Olivia sucks in her bottom lip briefly, the only indication of how tightly she's keeping a lid on everything she's feeling about this case. "Does it say what the trials were for?"

"Something called ' _Lot Six_ '. Apparently it was supposed to be an analog to Cortexiphan. Some people weren't happy when the Jacksonville trials ended." Olivia stiffens. Peter reaches over and squeezes her knee. She doesn't take her eyes off the road. "Wanless thought they'd have better results using older subjects. He thought they'd be less volatile. Easier to study."

"How many were there?" Olivia asks in a tight voice. "Does it say what happened to them?" She flips the turn signal on and pulls into the parking lot next to the Boston PD building.

"Look, Olivia," Peter says once she's shut off the engine. He slaps the file shut. "You running away from the Jacksonville trials did not cause what happened to Charlie."

"You can't know that." She shifts in her seat so she's facing him. She's got a matching pair of pink swathes high on her cheeks, where Charlie had touched her in the lab. They make her look slightly sunburnt, but they're not enough to disguise the anger Peter sees written clearly. "What if they'd gotten what they wanted from us? What if in this timeline I'd stayed and the program was never shut down?"

"What if Walter and Bell succeeded and gave you all superpowers, but somebody higher up the chain wasn't happy with how they were being used. So they decide to start their own program?" he counters. "The genie was already out of the bottle, Olivia. You didn't pull the cork."

::

Broyles is waiting for them with a sheaf of papers that pretty much guaranteed them an all-access pass to Andy McGee and his arrest records in hand.

"Nina called right after Agent Farnsworth did. She was fairly emphatic about the importance of your suspect and his relationship to the case," he greets them. "Fortunately, the new title does come with a few perks. I was able to get the custody transfer orders approved with a minimum of hassle."

"Thank you, sir," Olivia says. "Belated congratulations on the promotion." She gives him a quick smile and gets back to business. "And the charges against McGee?"

Peter pulls the heavy front door of the precinct building open and holds it for Broyles and Olivia. He's about to follow when a man in a dark suit jogs a couple of paces to duck through the open door. Peter's first thought is that the guy must be a lawyer on his way to meet a client, but he's not carrying a brief case or any sort of paperwork. What catches his eye though, is the cut of the man's suit; it's too expensive for the average detective's salary. The cloth and cut are closer to what Peter's used to seeing on the upper floors of the Federal Building, complete with the extra allowance under the arms for a shoulder holster.

"… because shoplifting is only a misdemeanor and he hasn't been formally charged yet," Broyles' answer to Olivia's question, draws Peter's attention back to them, "we're still sorting through how he's managed to remain in custody."

As they run gauntlet of desk sergeants and detectives and make their way through to the holding cells and interview rooms, Peter can't shake the sensation that they're being watched. And not just by the usual collection of cops warily interested in what the Feds are doing on their turf. Peter glances over his shoulder as they're buzzed through a security door and catches the man from the lobby with the dark suit half a dozen paces behind them.

Andy McGee is being held in the first room on the right hand side of a short hallway that's dead-ended by a washroom, and flanked by three other interview rooms. Peter follows Olivia and Broyles through the door. As he turns to shut it behind them, the man with the dark suit walks past.

If Peter had thought Charlie looked rough when they'd found her at the diner, Andy looked absolutely wiped. Dark circles under his eyes made them look sunken and he's got that stiff-shouldered hunch that Peter remembers from too many nights sleeping on train station benches and backseats of cars, but never getting near adequate rest. The man leaning over the table with his head propped in his hands is a ghost of the clean-cut college English instructor pictured in the records Astrid had retrieved. This is a man who's been on the run for too long.

Peter rounds the table and picks a spot to lean against the wall, somewhere between Andy and the pane of two-way safety glass, effectively blocking the view of anybody watching from the other room. Olivia looks up at him as she takes a seat opposite and nods at his tactic. He suspects she'd spotted Mr. Well-cut too.

When Olivia says, "Mr. McGee? I'm Olivia Dunham with the FBI," Andy winces. Olivia's introductions are rarely loud, and this time isn't an exception, but Andy scrunches his eyes together and pales like she'd just walked in and threatened to pistol-whip him.

"Can I get you anything?" she asks him quietly. "Some water, maybe?" She looks up at Broyles, who slips from the room.

"They took my Advil away when they booked me." Andy's voice comes out sounding pinched.

"Headache?" she asks. Andy rubs his eyes and grunts something that sounds like 'migraine'. Olivia gets up and flips the switch for the first bank of fluorescents, dimming the light in the room by half.

"Thanks," he mumbles into his hands.

"Can you tell me what happened at the drugstore, Andy?" Olivia opens the conversation in a soft voice. Peter has always loved watching her work; he's run a few cons in his day, had been good enough to make a living doing it, but he'd always had to work for it. Olivia makes it look effortless. It's like watching an artist work; seeing her tread the fine line that separates either side of the law. The difference from the scams he used to run, he supposes, is that Olivia really does want their confidence.

Andy sits back in his chair and straightens as much as the obvious throbbing in his skull will let him. "Why is the FBI interested in petty crimes all of a sudden?"

"Because," Olivia leans in across the table and pitches her voice low. No doubt that the room is being monitored. "We know where your daughter is." It comes out barely above a whisper, but Andy jerks as if he's been given an electric shock. "She's okay," Olivia continues as if he hadn't reacted; she has no need to blackmail him. "She's safe right now, but I don't know how long we can protect Charlie if we don't get some more information." She glances up at Peter, then back to Andy, who's looking even paler than when they'd walked in, if that's possible. "Like who these people following you are."

"Will you take me to her?" he asks. "If you do that, I'll tell you everything you want to know." Just like that. No bargaining, no need for coercion. Andy's hanging on the need to make sure his daughter is okay.

Peter hears the desperation in his voice. And suddenly, he gets it. September had been right on the money when he'd said it must be difficult being a father. Andy's willing lay every chip on the table to get Charlie back. He's just volunteered every ounce of leverage he's got.

Peter glances across at Olivia and something tightens in his chest. He's only had a few weeks to consider his impending fatherhood and the chance he'd already lost, but already he understands Walter on a level he hadn't previously. That old familiar fear of things slipping away has blindsided him more than once lately. "You talked them into arresting you because you knew it would make it hard for the men in black to grab you."

Andy turns to Peter. "Something like that. Except it's not talking, exactly." He looks back at Olivia. "It's more like I can push people into doing things they wouldn't normally think of doing." He swallows. "I know that sounds difficult to believe."

"Not as difficult as you'd think," Olivia says gently. Andy stares at her the same way Charlie had in the diner, focused, like he's looking _though_  her. Peter wonders how much Olivia is letting him see.

Apparently enough that Andy decides that she's telling him the truth. "I let my guard down for a couple of minutes. Got sloppy and let her go to the washroom by herself. Didn't check if there was a fire escape or a back door they could get her out." Andy rubs his eyes again. "I was just so tired from all the running and I slipped."

"What do they want her for?" Peter asks. "I mean, we saw what she can do, but why them? What's their interest?"

"Hollister thinks he can brainwash her and use her as a weapon. Slip her into a foreign country without security blinking an eye; get her close enough to some dictator or supreme leader who's not playing nice with US interests. Who'd suspect a little girl, right?"

Olivia's mouth tightens. "Who's Hollister?"

"James Hollister. His men call him Cap," Andy tells them. "He runs the program for the Shop, and he killed Charlie's mother." He sucks back a breath and looks up at Peter. "Do you have any idea what it's like to find your wife with a bullet in her head?"

"Yeah," the words stick in Peter's throat and he swallows back a reflexive gag. "I think I do."

He looks up to find Olivia watching him. The fingers on her right hand flex as if she's about to reach out, but then she remembers where she is and curls them into a loose fist on top of the table.

One day he'll tell her about his trip to the aborted future, but not now. Other traumas are still too fresh.

::

Andy's release into their custody should have been a simple matter of handing over the transfer orders Broyles had brought.

Except, of course, that it isn't.

Broyles returns just as they're winding down the conversation. They're met in the hallway by Mr. Well-cut and a pair of uniformed officers, O'Sullivan and Alvarez, according to their name tags.

"I'm sorry Agents," Mr. Well-cut says. "But there's a problem with your transfer orders. Mr. McGee can't be released into your custody yet."

"It's not going to work, Hollister," Andy shoulders his way between Peter and Broyles to stand next to Olivia. "I've already told them everything."

"Not quite," Hollister smiles thinly. "You didn't mention that shop lifting is the least of the crimes I could have you charged with."

Out of the corner of her eye, Olivia sees Alvarez slide his hand across to the butt of his gun. She slowly raises her hands and steps between Andy and Hollister's men. "Look, if there's been some kind of misunderstanding, why don't we just all move out over there," she points to the open and very public office area at the end of the hallway, "and discuss this?"

O'Sullivan's already got his service piece out, and the air in the tight hallway is starting to taste a little thick. Olivia can feel Peter's eyes on the back of her neck. It's not exactly the kind of situation she'd planned on getting into when she'd considered coming back to work either, but here they were, so she says a quick prayer that they can resolve this and walk out of here, Andy in tow.

She feels Andy's hand on her shoulder. "It's okay Officers," he says. "There's nothing wrong with the Agent's orders."

Olivia feels his grip tighter and glances back. Andy's forehead is beaded with sweat and the white of one eye steadily darkens as tiny vessels burst and blossom. She's about to open her mouth to tell him to stop, that they'll find another way, but he squeezes her shoulder harder.

"Mr. Hollister here is the one who's broken the law. He kidnapped a little girl. You need to take him into custody."

Alvarez and O'Sullivan both turn their guns on Hollister. Andy sags.

"Peter, help me," Olivia says. She grabs Andy as he starts to fall.

::

They make their way to the SUV before anybody in Hollister's little party can change their minds. Andy leans heavily on Peter the whole way. Olivia keeps checking the review mirror as she drives, but it doesn't seem like they're being followed. At one point, she catches Andy slumped against the back seat with his eyes closed and his breath fogging the window beside him.

The lab has its own loading dock, installed after Walter took up residence to facilitate things like body transfers and specimen deliveries. Olivia pulls up to the doors and it takes both her and Peter to get Andy out of the SUV and into the lab. Fortunately, they'd called ahead and Astrid's waiting for them with a gurney.

Charlie is up by Gene's pen, helping Walter groom her. She drops her brush as soon when she hears the chatter of the gurney's wheels on the concrete floor and yells, "Daddy!" as she runs to meet them.

Olivia intercepts her while Peter fills Walter and Astrid in.

"Charlie," she says as she crouches down to eye-level. Charlie cranes her head, trying to see around Olivia to where Walter's already barking orders for saline IVs and warm blankets. "You're dad's okay, but we need to let Dr. Bishop help him first."

"He's got another migraine, doesn't he," Charlie says. Her voice rises at the end and her forehead creases as she tries to see past the people hovering over her father. Olivia wonders how many times Andy's had to push himself this close to the breaking point before, and how often he's been able to hide the extent of the damages from his daughter. Not that well, judging from the look of panic she's wearing.

Olivia takes her hand and leads her over to one of the taller lab stools near the gurney so she's got an unobstructed view while Walter works. "Walter," she says, "Can you tell Charlie what you're doing to treat her father?"

Walter pauses, penlight in one hand, thumb poised over one of Andy's eyelids.

"It would help her not be afraid if she understood what's happening," Olivia explains. She rests a hand on Charlie's back and feels her lean into her side.

Walter glances over at the charred remains of his sequencer and he blinks. "Of course," he says and turns to Charlie. "At the moment I'm using this light," he waves the penlight in their direction, making them both squint, before he uses it to gesture down at Andy, "to check for pupil response… to… to see how his eyes react to light."

"So you can tell if he's got brain damage," Charlie states. "From using the Push."

Walter hesitates and looks to Olivia. She nods.

"Yes. Exactly." He pulls one of Andy's eyelids up gently and flashes the light back and forth, then repeats the process with the other. "Right now his pupil response is good," he straightens and explains. "A little bit slow, but you can think of it like he's taken a blow to the head and has a concussion. Would you like to come and see for yourself?"

Olivia winces. She has to give Walter credit for trying to bring things down to Charlie's level; he's always been good at relating to children, but he's also always loved an audience, especially one with a vested interest in the case.

But Charlie slides off the stool and goes to stand on the other side of the still-unconscious Andy. "It's okay, you can touch him if you'd like," Walter encourages. "Physical contact has been shown to be very helpful in many types of treatments."

Olivia watches Charlie slips her fingers around Andy's hand, and when she's satisfied that they've averted another potential conflagration, she takes a few steps back from them and pulls out her phone.

"Nina?" she says. "It's Olivia. I need a favor."

::

The lights in the lab have been lowered for the night and Astrid had left hours ago. It's late and Olivia's been waiting on the wooden bench by the door for Peter for a while. He and Walter had disappeared into Walter's rooms not long after Charlie and Andy (who was looking markedly improved after a solid four hours sleep and Walter's cocktail of fluids, vitamins, electrolytes, and a handful of other undisclosed ingredients) had left with the security escort Nina had sent.

Olivia had filled the time by writing up her case reports and raiding Walter's kitchenette for a late supper of peanut butter and crackers. The sleeve of saltines had run out a while ago, and since that incident with Peter and the bottle of milk, Olivia has been leery of drinking anything in the lab fridges without double and triple-checking their contents. She rolls her shoulders and stands to stretch back muscles, tight from sitting at a desk for the last few hours. Gene chews her cud and watches Olivia with her usual disinterest, until noise from Walter's room catches her attention and she lows a softly in his direction.

"So?" Olivia asks when Peter finally appears with both their coats in hand. He looks as tired as she feels.

"Charlie and Andy arrive okay?" he asks as he holds her coat open for her.

Olivia nods. "Nina called about half an hour ago. All she would say is that they're at a Massive Dynamic owned property somewhere upstate New York." She shrugs into the sleeves and turns to him. "She won't say where, though."

"It's probably better that way. Safer."

"Maybe." She knows he's right; first rule of witness protection and all, but Olivia still can't shake the gnawing feeling that's she's missing something important.

"The fewer people who know where Charlie is, the less chance of Hollister's agents finding them."

"It's not that." Olivia looks down for a second. "I trust Nina."

"But…"

And when Olivia doesn't answer, "You're still thinking about those mutations."

She can't quite meet his eyes. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't wonder."

Peter takes a step closer. "Actually, that's what I was talking to Walter about." He reaches up to brush a strand of hair behind her ear and she takes advantage of the opportunity to press his palm against her cheek with hers. He's warm and steady, at odds with how she's been feeling since Walter had reluctantly admitted he'd been reviewing the records from the Cortexiphan trials.

"He said he only dug the records out after he found out you were pregnant." Peter tells her. "He was worried about what it might have done to you, especially after Bell started dosing you again. That's why he ordered all the new lab equipment."

Olivia opens her mouth to protest or to argue that he should have at least told her, but Peter keeps going. "Walter was afraid of how you'd react. That's why he wanted to talk to me this evening."

"That must have been quite the discussion." She doesn't mean for it to come out sounding sharp-edged, but she'd spent the last four years in a relationship with this Walter that was something closer to family than to colleague, and while the memories of root beer floats and road trips are more sepia-toned since Peter came back, she should have been included in the conversation.

Peter's mouth twists into a tight line. "He wanted to wait until he had more data, but he said he'd like to run some tests if you're willing."

Olivia considers. Different approach, but not unlike what she'd been planning on doing herself by searching for the remaining Cortexiphan children. She looks up at Peter and tries to see where he stands on the whole thing, but he's keeping his features carefully neutral.

She wonders if it's worth it, _knowing_ that she's passing on some genetic typo. Will it change the way she feels about their child?

Peter's still watching her. Waiting. His jaw muscles bulge as he tries not to give anything away that might influence her decision. But the thing is it's not just her choice whether to find out; it's something they should be discussing together. From the length of the chat with Walter and his silence now, she can already tell where Peter stands.

"Can't," she says as she looks over her shoulder at the heap of charred sequencer parts. "The machine's broken."

Peter seems to deflate. He pulls her into his arms and rests his chin on the top of her head.

"Okay then," he says once Olivia pulls back. He's smiling. Olivia knows it's the right choice. It's not going to stop her from wondering, but at least not knowing means there's still a  _chance_  at normal.

"Home?" he asks as he pulls on his own coat.

"Home," she agrees. "We can talk about that trip to Chicago." She takes his offered hand.

"Tomorrow," she amends.

**Author's Note:**

> For rainer76 , who asked for the Bishop boys interacting, and then offered me free reign. Sadly, the reigns were a little too free.  
> Thanks to kerithwyn for the beta. All remaining mistakes belong to me.


End file.
